Episode 672: How To Thrive (Not Just Survive) as A Recipe Blogger in 2025 With Dana Shrager

EBT672 – Dana Shrager

Intro 00:00

Food bloggers. Hi, how are you today? Thank you so much for tuning in to the Eat Blog Talk podcast. This is the place for food bloggers to get information and inspiration to accelerate your blog’s growth, and ultimately help you to achieve your freedom. Whether that’s financial, personal, or professional. I’m Megan Porta. I have been a food blogger for 13 years, so I understand how isolating food blogging can be. I’m on a mission to motivate, inspire, and most importantly, let each and every food blogger, including you, know that you are heard and supported. 

[00:00:37] Supercut

Hey there food bloggers. Check out our new finance supercut. This is a bonus 15 minute episode capturing highlights from finance episodes that we have recorded recently on the podcast. Head to eatblogtalk.com/financesupercut to listen today. 

[00:00:55] Megan Porta

Do you ever feel like there’s such a balance to figure out between writing robotically and showing up robotically for your user and also being really authentic and real and showing your human side? If so, I think you’re really going to find a ton of value in this interview I had with Dana Shrager from Dana’s Table.

[00:01:18]   

She has been a blogger for a really long time, so she’s seen all the changes in the past, I don’t know, I think 13 or 14 years in her time as a blogger. So she really does know what it takes in today’s landscape to offer a unique and authentic voice, and that is in both writing your recipe and in showing up in other ways.

[00:01:41]   

 Dana talks about why finding your unique point of view in 2025 is so important. She talks about ways to be authentic and real when putting your content together and how to show up and actually show your personality. She has so many tips about how to communicate your expertise to your audience. One of the things I really liked that she talked about was having a unique angle for your recipes.

[00:02:09]   

 So why are your chocolate chip cookies better or different than anyone else’s? Be sure to communicate that when you write your post and when you promote your post. There’s so much packed into this episode. I am not even going to try to go through all our all of our points because it would take me forever.

[00:02:29]   

 So listen to the episode. I hope you love it. I hope this inspires you to show up more authentically to your people. It is episode number 672. 

[00:02:38] Sponsor

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[00:03:22] Megan Porta   

Dana Shrager is the recipe creator at Dana’s Table, where she shares recipes for Jewish holidays and healthy-ish family dinners. She started a recipe website 13 years ago to share recipes with family and friends. Three years ago, she rebranded and began running her site full time. Now she helps readers from around the world feel confident cooking and gathering loved ones around their holiday tables. Hello, Dana. Welcome to the podcast. How are you doing?

[00:03:48]  Dana Shrager 

 Hi, Megan. Thank you so much for having me. I’m a regular listener and I’m excited to be here today.

[00:03:55]  Megan Porta 

 I love turning listeners into guests. So thank you for being here. Today we are going to talk about thriving as a recipe blogger in this crazy world of food blogging as it is right now by offering a unique and authentic voice. I love this topic. It’s so important. As you know. Before we get to that though, Dana, do you have a fun fact to share with us?

[00:04:17]  Dana Shrager 

 I do have a fun fact. My fun fact is I’m going to be teaching a cooking class in Italy this summer. I’m teamed up with my friend who owns a cooking school in Puglia, and we are going to be making Jewish Italian recipes and taking field trips as well.

[00:04:35]  Megan Porta 

 Wow. Okay. That’s super cool. I might ask you a little bit more about that later.

[00:04:39]  Dana Shrager 

 That would be great.

[00:04:40]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah, I’m so intrigued by that. I think that sounds so fun. How long is your trip?

[00:04:45]  Dana Shrager 

 It’s six days.

[00:04:47]  Megan Porta 

 Okay.

[00:04:48]  Dana Shrager 

 And I have a sign up going now. It’s for the end of the summer.

[00:04:52]  Megan Porta 

 Okay. All right, we’ll talk about that more toward the end of the episode if anyone’s intrigued like I am. But. But for now, let’s get into the topic at hand and I think to round out our conversation, it might be beneficial just to get a little information about your blog. So tell us a little bit about Dana’s Table.

[00:05:11]  Dana Shrager 

 Sure. I started my recipe blog. I guess we call them websites now, but I’ve been doing this for 13 years and I started when friends and relatives were asking me for recipes and, and over the 13 years, my website has evolved and now it is called Dana’s Table and I share recipes for Jewish holidays and everyday healthyish dinner recipes.

[00:05:39]  Megan Porta 

 So you are an OG blogger, like I am. You’ve been around for a while. You’ve seen lots of changes in this space.

[00:05:47]  Dana Shrager 

 I have, yeah. And I feel like it gives me good perspective for today’s topic because it’s definitely cyclical.

[00:05:53]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah. When you’re around, I would say even bloggers who have been around for six years, you kind of see it all. And if you started back when we started, you really have seen it all. The whole gamut of challenges and wins and things to celebrate. Yeah, it’s. It falls within all of that, right?

[00:06:14]  Dana Shrager 

 Definitely.

[00:06:16]  Megan Porta 

 So we’re going to talk about using your authentic voice and using a unique voice. So tell me why this is important in 2025, do you think?

[00:06:26]  Dana Shrager 

 Okay, right now we’re at a time of a lot of changes and transitions in food blogging and really the Internet in general. So there’s AI content readily available and being produced in mass in the food space and I’m sure other spaces too. There’s stolen content, especially put on social media. And of course, not everybody is going to Google and search engines now to get information.

[00:06:58]   

 Sometimes they’re asking AI for information and in particular, recipes. I personally can’t figure out why someone would want an AI recipe because it’s some random combination of language and the recipe has never been tested by a human being. And so I wouldn’t want to waste my time, time or ingredients on an untested recipe.

[00:07:21]   

 But it’s still a place that some people go to for recipes. So our websites are now competing with all these other avenues or new ways to get recipes. And also too, I think after the pandemic or during the pandemic, a lot of people started recipe websites. And so that has also. And some people have stuck around.

[00:07:43]   

 And so that’s also saturated the market with even more websites, the recipe websites, than there used to be. So the bottom line is there’s a lot of competition out there and you have to figure out how you’re going to get noticed. So I think the best way to get noticed is to do something very unique and very personal and not to be generic.

[00:08:04]  Megan Porta 

 Yes. And do you feel like really honing in on a niche is an important part of that?

[00:08:10]  Dana Shrager 

 I definitely think that’s a big part of it. Because you can’t be, or I don’t think you can be all things to all people. And I don’t think you can get attention if you just try to bill yourself as being a generalist. I think people who have very large websites can do that.

[00:08:28]   

 They’ve been around a long time, they have a huge catalog, they have a name, brands, so maybe they can be generalists. But I think for the average food blogger, whether you’re established or new, I think you need to have a niche, a specialty, a point of view, a personality to attract attention and to be a real person that other people can connect to.

[00:08:51]   

 You know, there’s even actually I forgot to mention another newer trend on recipe websites that works against the hard working bloggers. Some people or some blogging experts have said or are selling courses with get rich quick schemes and saying you don’t need to cook recipes and that you can either steal recipes or only make roundups.

[00:09:15]   

 And it’s supposed to be like a quick way to throw up a site and get traffic. But those sites can don’t have any soul. You know, the people aren’t really cooking. And I think the more your site has soul and personality and a point of view, the more you can attract other real people looking for real expertise and not, I don’t know, not phonies.

[00:09:40]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah, I think 2024, when a couple of HCUs were dished out to recipe sites, I think that a lot of those kind of scammy sites got brought down. So the sites that were not cooking, they were not authentic. There was actually not a human behind them. We all know exactly what I’m talking about.

[00:10:02]   

 But they were delivering, just pumping out a ton of roundup style content that wasn’t even authentic in itself. So I think Google is cracking down on that and we’re kind of seeing the dust settle from that. But yeah, that was a real issue before 2024 I think.

[00:10:24]  Dana Shrager 

 Definitely. I mean some, even though a lot of us see these Google updates as like our enemy, like cutting down our traffic, there are definitely very helpful things about some of the updates.

[00:10:35]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah. So you feel like it’s important in today’s landscape to really hone in on a niche. If somebody is starting or maybe they started even a couple of years ago and they don’t feel like they’re niched down, you feel like yes, they should probably find an avenue to go down.

[00:10:53]  Dana Shrager 

 Yes, I think you have to have something to talk about so and show yourself as an expertise and something you can throw your passion behind, something you can, you know, share your lived experience. So we’re not all experienced at all things. And even though I have a passion for food, I don’t have a passion for every single type of food or, you know, every single type of recipe.

[00:11:15]   

 So I think it’s just a way to connect to other people who share the same ideas, the same type of diet, same type of way of eating. People are looking for, I think, expertise. There’s a lot of people who follow special diets. For me, I’m attracting people who want to celebrate the holidays and are looking for recipes.

[00:11:35]   

 People are busy, people are working, they need to put food on the table, whether it’s dinner or the holidays. But not everybody cooks the same way. You know, there’s a wide range of what’s out there and you want to connect to other like minded people.

[00:11:50]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah, no, you said that very well. And another piece of it is authenticity, which is why you’re here today to talk about that piece. Do you feel like it is hard to be authentic in today’s landscape?

[00:12:03]  Dana Shrager 

 Well, first of all, I think it’s the only path forward. But like, in terms of the evolution of blogging, at first, in the beginning, in the early days, I don’t know, 15, 10, 15 years ago, people only talked about themselves. I mean, maybe people talk too much about themselves. Like talked about, I walked my dog and now I’m home in the kitchen about to cook or you know, you know, people were talking about, it was very much a diary style website and people were talking about things that were irrelevant to the food and to the cooking.

[00:12:36]   

 And so that became taboo at some point. And you were supposed to sort of, you know, be professional and not be too personal. And I know people who took everything personal off of their site. And you know, and I’m so glad that I never did that. I mean, I did take off anything, you know, a bit irrelevant or a bit too wordy or whatever, but I never took the personality or the personalness out of my sight.

[00:13:01]   

 And I’m so glad that I can. I edited it, but I kept it. And I can still be an individual rather than be anonymous. I mean, the only website that I think does a really good job of being anonymous is something like simply recipes or maybe all recipes, you know, but those are very large, very established sites and I don’t think the average food blogger can emulate them.

[00:13:26]  Megan Porta 

 No, I think that is so smart of you to take some of it off, but not all of it off. Because a lot of us were like, oops, we need to get rid of it, all of it. We need to be robots. And we stripped it and then it turned into, okay, wait, you should add some of your humanness and personality back in.

[00:13:44]   

 So now we’re kind of having to go back and sprinkle in those little bits, showing people that we are human. So I love that you kept a little bit of it, but it is a balance, right? It’s not. It’s not easy to write for the user in a very informative way, but also to have personality and show up with your human side.

[00:14:08]  Dana Shrager 

 And I think you have to show that you really made the recipe, you know, because otherwise it could be a stolen recipe, it could be an AI recipe. And you need to say things that show that you really did test the recipe. And I think it reassures the reader. It informs the reader to say, you know, sometimes I talk about the type of recipe testing I do, and I say, I tried a high temperature and this is how it turned out.

[00:14:33]   

 I tried a low temperature and this is how it turned out. So, you know, if you want to be assured that I am recommending the right temperature to roast or bake something, I’m explaining you why it’s the correct temperature. And if you want something more softer, more crunchy, or, you know, then maybe you would make certain adjustments.

[00:14:50]   

 But then you sound like you know what you’re talking about, and you sound like you really made the recipe, and that will help increase the reader’s trust in you to make your recipe as opposed to somebody else’s.

[00:15:02]  Megan Porta 

 Do you sprinkle that stuff throughout the post? Do you put it in the recipe card? Where do you put all of this kind of commentary about if you do this, then this or this.

[00:15:13]  Dana Shrager 

In the post, I try to have a section after I describe, you know, what it is and why I think it’s great. Then I try to give something personal about the recipe, whether it’s my recipe testing, whether this was my grandma’s recipe and she was super famous for it, and everybody always asked me for the recipe.

[00:15:33]   

 And I had cousins begging for the recipe. And that’s why the recipe’s on the site, because so many people were asking for the recipe. And, you know, sometimes too, I’ll add what, what readers say, because a lot of my recipes are now beloved by readers. And so, you know, I try not to take too much ownership of the recipe.

[00:15:49]   

 If it’s somebody else is now making this, a reader’s now making this brisket recipe every year, and their family loves it. It’s now their recipe. You know, like, even though they come to my site to get the recipe and they might tell someone, go to the site to get the recipe, I like it.

[00:16:05]   

 When readers take ownership of the recipe. It’s now their own family’s beloved recipe. But it start. It started with my family’s beloved recipe.

[00:16:14]  Megan Porta 

 Right. I love that you said that so well. When people take ownership of your recipe, do you share testimonials? Do you share their comments? How do you share that with others?

[00:16:26]  Dana Shrager 

 So this is part of being authentic and showing your expertise. I’ve been collecting what people are saying because mostly now people say these things on social media or some people say these things to me personally if I know them in real life or, you know, some. A reader also might potentially email, but most of this is said on social media.

[00:16:46]   

 So it’s no longer in the comments where everybody can see what people are saying. Right, right. With the recipe. So I have a document where I’m collecting all this and I’ve started to use these quotes on social media when I say, you know, you’re going to want to make this casserole too, and then I’ll quote the reader.

[00:17:07]   

 But I am planning to add these quotes, like in a box on my recipes on the website.

[00:17:14]  Megan Porta 

 Okay.

[00:17:14]  Dana Shrager 

 Because they’re not, they’re, they’re not accessible on the website because they’re on social media.

[00:17:20]  Megan Porta 

 Gotcha. Well, I think that would be helpful for people just as they scroll through the post to see it’s not just your commentary then, it’s other people. And that carries so much weight.

[00:17:32]  Dana Shrager 

 I think exactly the first step has been to collect the comments off of social media. And now it’s like a, it’s like a project to start adding these comments in a little box on the website.

[00:17:45]  Megan Porta 

 I love it. Do you have other tips for just kind of projecting your confidence about the post and the recipe outside of just directly what you’re writing, maybe at the top of the post?

[00:17:57]  Dana Shrager 

To project the confidence in the recipe?

[00:18:00]  Megan Porta 

 Right. So just letting people know that you’re an authority on the recipe and that it’s you, you are authentically showing up. So you mentioned, you know, if you do this, then this, if you bake it for two minutes longer, it’s going to do this. Is there anything outside of that that lets people know, okay, yeah, she is human and she’s here and she’s showing up and she’s real.

[00:18:22]  Dana Shrager 

 Okay, so first of all, there’s pitfalls of a recipe. So if I’ve messed up the recipe, then, you know, I talk about that and say, you know, you know, don’t, don’t do this. This didn’t work. You know, like. But also, readers will also tell you about pitfalls or ask you questions. I have a very active or actually two very active Facebook groups.

[00:18:43]   

 So I have a lot of interaction with my readers because of the Facebook groups. I also actually have a friend who will stumble into every pitfall possible if she makes the recipe. And so, and so I try my best to anticipate like what I think, you know, the pitfalls or the questions can be.

[00:19:05]   

 It’s sort of like also you try to like handle that in the process shots. Like the batter should look like this, you know, take it out of the oven when this. So I never say take something out of the oven after this much time. I always say give a time range and then give visual descriptions of this is what it should look like when it’s ready, you know, the cake sides, you know, the sides pull away from the pan, you know, or try to be very specific visually of when you know something’s ready.

[00:19:36]   

 Because everybody’s oven runs differently. But I try to anticipate whatever pitfalls I can and give tips and I try to give photos and the process shots to guide people. But then if readers run into questions or problems or friends run into the pitfalls, then if I haven’t already anticipated that, I go back and I add those things later.

[00:19:58]   

 So what I love about having a recipe site, you know, as opposed to a cookbook is I could do my own editing and make things more clear. So readers will usually tell you if, if something is not clear or if they have, you know, questions that I haven’t anticipated, I’ll go back and, and edit.

[00:20:15]  Megan Porta 

 And does that include photos? So if you want to show the cake pulling away from the pan, maybe do you retake the photos and add those to your post as well?

[00:20:25]  Dana Shrager 

 Well, hopefully I’ve already done that and that I don’t have to retake photos because, you know, that’s one thing I try. It’s an ordeal not to have to do, but I could at least, you know, it’s much easier just to edit and add a few more qualifying words. So I only retake photos when necessary.

[00:20:42]   

 And being that I have an old site, if I’m retaking photos, it’s probably for recipes that didn’t have any process shots to begin with because yeah, so.

[00:20:52]  Megan Porta 

 You have to do a rehaul anyway.

[00:20:53]  Dana Shrager 

 We all have old school. If you have a long term site, you have a backlog of recipes that haven’t been updated and my list is dwindling. It’s getting much, much, much shorter.

[00:21:05]  Megan Porta 

 Good, that’s great. How do you handle the perfectionism? Because I know that can be an issue for a lot of food bloggers.

[00:21:15]  Dana Shrager 

 I feel like that’s also like part of the imposter syndrome, that if you’re a perfectionist, then you feel like an imposter because you never feel like it’s good enough. And I guess I have not been to culinary school, although I’ve taken quite a lot of cooking classes and I have quite a lot of experience as a home cook.

[00:21:34]   

 But I put myself out there as a home cook. So as a home cook, I’m cooking for a family. I’m not catering and I’m just an experienced home cook advising other home cooks about how to get dinner on the table for your family and how to host holidays for your family. So if I remember that, then I realize I don’t have to be perfect.

[00:21:56]   

 I also do a lot of research, so that helps me feel like I know what I’m talking about. It’s not only my family recipes or my personal lived experience. I do research on the Internet, but everybody could research on the Internet. I research in cookbooks a lot. I have a large cookbook collection and I turn to experts I trust in those cuisines in the form of cookbooks.

[00:22:23]   

 If I feel stuck, I ask colleagues. I have different peer mastermind groups for, for different things. And actually I ask my readers questions. You know, I have a lot of readers in my groups who are other home cooks who have been cooking for decades. There’s plenty of grandmas in my groups who have been cooking for a long time.

[00:22:45]   

 So, so sometimes I throw things to them, you know, and, you know, how do you handle this, you know, or what’s your favorite recipe for this? So it’s really, it’s, it’s all about that part too is about communicating with the readers and, you know, having a dialogue. It’s not just, it’s not just a one way conversation, it’s.

[00:23:03]   

 It’s a dialogue with my readers. So that helps make the relationship, make the connection, makes them want to come and see my version of a recipe as opposed to somebody else’s version of a recipe.

[00:23:14]  Megan Porta 

 Do you think that in this new landscape of ours that the more authentic and the more real is more alluring, I guess, for people? Because it used to be, I used to feel like I had to get my photos perfect and I had to be perfect and the videos had to be polished and perfect and now it doesn’t feel like that so much anymore.

[00:23:34]  Dana Shrager 

 I 100% agree. And you know, I love a perfect photo too where like, you know, like, you Feel like you love the composition and the colors are pretty and the napkin just drapes perfectly, which I can never get my napkins to like drape perfectly. I need to go to napkin draping school or something.

[00:23:52]   

 But you know, and the garnish is just so. And you know, I’m all about that because, you know, I love the aesthetic of that. But you know, people will say like, what’s popular? That doesn’t necessarily matter. And people want something more relatable. And people certainly don’t want a photo that looks absolutely nothing.

[00:24:12]   

 It’s fine if it’s a little aspirational or a little extra pretty, but people don’t want a photo that looks nothing like what they’ll get at home. And you know, sometimes I take some of my photos like on my iPhone, you know, a quick snap with decent natural lighting in my kitchen and people are like, oh my God, that kitchen looks so amazing.

[00:24:30]   

 And it’s just like, okay, it doesn’t look anything near as good as some professional food photographer that I sometimes, you know, use a freelancer who will give me a very professional, very perfect recipe. But I get just as much, just as many compliments on kitchen snaps with an iPhone in, in, in good lighting, you know, and people are like, oh, that looks so juicy.

[00:24:54]   

 That looks so good. I’m just like, yeah, it was, it was real. I really made that in my kitchen, right? And I served it to my family, you know, 15 minutes later, you know.

[00:25:04]  Megan Porta 

 No, that is real. I think people really appreciate that real aspect these days. Even if it’s not the most perfect lighting, the most clean backdrop. Real trumps everything, I think right now, which is good, right? It takes the pressure off of us. 

[00:25:20] Sponsor   

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[00:25:56]   

Okay, I have a question about people who want to create recipes. Maybe it’s something really common like a chocolate chip cookie or, or mashed potatoes or something that is already out there and popular. How do you use your authentic voice to create something unique when it comes to something that’s really popular, like a chocolate chip cookie?

[00:26:14]  Dana Shrager 

 Okay, that’s an amazing question. I mean, that’s sort of like the million dollar question for food bloggers because, you know, there’s banana bread, there’s chocolate chip cookies. Those are all already out there. So I approach my website in, I would say a two prong approach. I do even still, you know, SEO research and try to come up with the elusive high volume, low competition keywords.

[00:26:43]   

 And the key to this is that fit in my niche. Okay. I’ve come across great keywords that are not my niche at all that there’s no way I could like talk about or have a discussion with or throw true heart, true love, true interest, true passion behind. No way. It would all be fake.

[00:27:04]   

 Okay, because, woo, this is a good keyword. I’ve never used even one of those. Okay. Sometimes I want to toss them over to a friend. Hey, this fits your niche, not mine. But I, you know, I found this by accident, but I’m just not going to use use it because I can’t be real.

[00:27:20]   

 Okay. But I find plenty hidden gems in my niche. I also find, I guess I’m getting a little off the topic, but I’m gonna circle back because it’s kind of about the SEO. The best are. The highest volume keywords in my niche are already overused and every huge blogger is already blogging about those recipes because they have their fingers in every niche, okay?

[00:27:45]   

 They’ve just found every high volume word. Even if they know nothing about my niche or not much, okay. You know, they’re, they’re bought, they’re posting recipes for it. I can outrank them a lot of the time because it’s my niche. Also, they have like thousands of recipes on their site. They can’t optimize all their recipes.

[00:28:05]   

 So it is possible to outrank them. I’m not saying I outrank them every time, but I definitely have many, many times. Also, even if I can’t outrank them, these recipes are in my niche. I need to be an expert in my niche. You know, I can’t be missing an important holiday recipe or a dinner table staple, you know, just because there’s a lot of competition for that keyword.

[00:28:29]   

 I, if I’m going to be an authority in my niche, I have to cover everything. So if somehow chocolate, if I’m a cookie expert or something, I still have to have that chocolate chip cookie. Agreed recipe. Because I’m trying to say this is a cookie website, okay? It’s not mine, but the theoretical cookie blogger, okay?

[00:28:46]   

 So you still have to have it to be an expert in your niche and you have to have it for your audience because at some point when you have loyal followers, they’re still going to want Your chocolate cookie recipe and not somebody else’s. Okay. Nevertheless, if I am trying, I still try to add to the conversation.

[00:29:05]   

 So here’s an example. I came across a certain kind of pudding recipe that I wanted to put on my website. And if you look, there’s plenty of recipes for it. But the more I looked, okay, maybe, I don’t know if this is just like a happy accident, but the more I looked, most of the recipes were dairy and I wanted dairy free.

[00:29:28]   

 Most of the dairy free recipes that were out there were coconut and I did not want coconut milk. Most of the recipes had a traditional topping and I had lots of ideas for other toppings. Most of the recipes had a plain version of the pudding, which is traditional. But I like it if you add a little spice, like a little cinnamon or a little cardamom, like give it a little flavor.

[00:29:52]   

 So it was very easy in that case to have something that was, that had a chance of being useful to people because I had all these other variables that I was going to develop that weren’t so commonly out there. So in terms of chocolate chip cookies, I mean, you know, obviously that’s a more, you know, well worn recipe.

[00:30:14]   

 But if you can still write a write up, you know, why you think your version is the best and why you’ve tried browning the butter and not browning the butter, you know, is it worth the time? Is it not worth the time? You know, should you refrigerate the dough, not refrigerate the dough?

[00:30:29]   

 You know, there’s a lot of things to talk about that affect the outcome of the recipe and that you could share why you think your version is the best. I personally like tahini chocolate chip cookies. You know, search volume is not as high for that, but you know, for me that’s the sort of secret ingredient that just adds that little extra flavor, yumminess to a chocolate chip cookie, you know, and so sometimes there’s a balance between worrying about what has good search volume versus what you know is a really good recipe.

[00:31:03]   

 And if you could get your readers, you know, into what you think tastes really good, you know, they’ll follow. So. And I’ve had times where the volume of things did not look very good, but it was something on an SEO tool, the volume looked low. And I was like, you know what, this is important for my niche and this is something I really can get behind and I think I can get my readers excited about. And my volume has been way higher than the prediction on the, on the tool.

[00:31:30]  Megan Porta 

 I noticed that too, all the time. It doesn’t line up and in our favor.

[00:31:35]  Dana Shrager 

 I think that if your whole site is filled with chocolate chip cookies and banana breads and all the standards, you’re really going to struggle. You know that you need to have sort of a point of view. But you know, if you make that banana bread every single week because you always over buy bananas and the bananas are always sitting on the counter brown and you know, it’s something that you can talk about and you’ve made your own, like tweaks and preferences to the recipe, then I think you could put it on your site.

[00:32:03]   

 But if you have all common generic recipes on your site, like, that’s going to be a tough slog to find an audience and to get hits to your site.

[00:32:13]  Megan Porta 

 Right? Yeah. This kind of goes along with the SEO strategies that people are using right now, which is to just show people, show your audience how you’re unique and that can be, I have made this banana bread a million times and that stands out to people. If you’ve literally made a banana bread hundreds, if not thousands of times, people are going to listen up and that is going to make your banana bread. That’s going to be the unique factor in your banana bread. So communicate that. Right. Be sure to put that in your post, write about those things and in.

[00:32:47]  Dana Shrager 

 Your title, even, you know.

[00:32:48]  Megan Porta 

 Or in your title. Yeah.

[00:32:49]  Dana Shrager 

 Or the headline of the social media, you know.

[00:32:52]  Megan Porta 

 Right, exactly. So to go along with that, we need to write quality, solid recipes. We shouldn’t be putting things up that are like, feel okay about this. It’s kind of iffy. I’m not totally sure we should be 100% confident about the recipes we put up.

[00:33:12]  Dana Shrager 

 100%. Because if you want a loyal audience, you have to do right by that. If you’re, if your recipe flops, you know, then they’re probably not coming back. Now if they tell you it flops and you could help them problem solve and they’re like, oopsie. You realize they didn’t, I don’t know, they didn’t preheat the oven or they left out an ingredient or, you know, something went wrong and you help them figure it out, well, they’ll be a loyal follower for life.

[00:33:35]   

 But yes, you want your recipes totally tested and explained, you know, as clearly as possible to ensure the reader’s success, you know, and I think, you know, I’ve been like a cookbook lover my whole life. So, you know, the more recipes you see and the more recipes you write, the better you get at the recipe writing and you know, there’s.

[00:33:59]   

 There’s recipe writing books out there as well, you know, that. That people can get. Well, you know, I don’t have the titles off the top of my head, but I could give them to you if you want to put them in the show notes. I also put a couple books here, too, because I thought they could help people.

[00:34:13]   

 But I’ve used this book, Ratio by Michael Woolman, and he gives formulas for different recipes. So when I was developing a muffin recipe, I know I use this. So you can see, like, right on the cover there’s a wheel. And so it says right here, muffin is. The ratio is flour to liquid, 2 egg 1, fat 1.

[00:34:36]   

 That’s the ratio for making a muffin. So. So this is a helpful book if you’re creating your own recipes from scratch. And then this is the second book. But the other book that I think is really helpful, it’s Karen Page and Andrew Dorenberg. This is their second book that I have called Kitchen Creativity.

[00:34:54]   

 But they have a first book called Flavor Bible. So if you’re not sure with what flavors, go with what you can look it up in there, and they tell you what ingredients blend well with other ingredients to make good flavors. So, you know, we, you know, we all need tools. And, you know, I get a lot of.

[00:35:13]   

 And I live in Los Angeles, and so we have every ethnic restaurant and market available here. And so that is, you know, my inspiration. And I talk about that on my website too, you know, and with recipes and how I live here and how I was inspired by a restaurant or a trip to an ethnic market to try ingredients.

[00:35:36]   

 So it just, it just makes it more real. It makes it more personal. These are good things to show on your social media as well. Like, you know, here I am at this ethnic market or something like that. You know, show people, like a slice of your life. It makes you more relatable, right?

[00:35:52]  Megan Porta 

 Which is the whole point of this conversation, right? Being more authentic and real and relatable. How do you find topics or recipes to write about outside of keyword research? Do you have conversations with your people on social media? Do you ask them through email? How do you go about that?

[00:36:10]  Dana Shrager 

 Yes. All of the above. Yes. It’s great. To survey your readers in my Facebook groups, I ask people, what recipes do you want to learn this year? You can do a poll or you can just let people answer in the comments. So I get ideas from that. I look back over, you know, what people have talked about in the group over the year.

[00:36:30]   

 You can Also ask people what are your favorite recipes in the niche? And so I think surveying the readers is a good idea. And a Facebook group makes it easy to do. But, you know, you could do that in Instagram, post or other ways as well. So that’s one, because I want to serve the readers.

[00:36:50]   

 Once I did this, this was so interesting. I looked in Google Analytics and I was able to see what people were searching for on my site and if they were searching for recipes that I don’t have.

[00:37:03]  Megan Porta 

 Ah, that’s a good one.

[00:37:06]  Dana Shrager 

 So that was very, very interesting. Oh, people are coming here looking for this recipe, and I don’t even have it, like, you know.

[00:37:13]  Megan Porta 

 Right.

[00:37:14]  Dana Shrager 

 So that was.

[00:37:15]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah, that’s. That’s great. I used to do that actually, but I don’t do it anymore. It’s one of those things, I think, that just kind of fell out of my brain. Yeah, but you can. I mean, it’s pretty easy to do that. I don’t have analytics open right now, but it’s fairly intuitive, I think, to find what people are looking for. And, yeah, if there are gaps, fill those gaps. Right.

[00:37:37]  Dana Shrager 

 You know, and the one thing, like, I think of myself as is a curated site. Like, I’m never gonna be a person who has a thousand or two thousand or, you know, recipes on my site. And so I don’t consider myself an encyclopedia on my topic. I consider myself to be a curator.

[00:37:56]   

 These are sort of like my greatest hits as well as what readers are clamoring for, you know, but, you know, I start with, you know, these are my advice. These are chicken recipes or, you know, I think are great for holidays. And, you know, I’ll tell you why. Because, you know, because you can make it ahead.

[00:38:14]   

 You know, because, you know, guests rave, you know, you know, all the reasons why. Like, a big part of my site is talking about which recipes match which holidays and the make ahead strategies. And not just like, this is a make ahead recipe. Just make it ahead. Like, you know, I specify what parts you make ahead and, like, what your options are.

[00:38:36]   

 And, you know, where you stop. You know, can you make the dough ahead? Can you bake it ahead? Can you freeze the dough? Can you freeze the finished product? How do you defrost it? If you’ve, you know, if you’ve frozen it and now you need to serve it, like, when do you transfer it to the fridge?

[00:38:51]   

 You know, all the, you know, don’t put a frozen glass casserole into a warm oven. The glass is likely to break. You know, so. So all those specific details add value to my site for people who are coming for holiday cooking advice. And usually you have a lot of people and a lot of dishes.

[00:39:11]   

 So the make ahead strategies are really key. So I really make sure that that’s a very. Not like a lip service section, but a very well developed section for each of my recipes.

[00:39:22]  Megan Porta 

 And that value that you’re talking about is proving that you’re a human too and that you are authentic. Because AI couldn’t come up with stuff like that. Like, if you put this in the oven, it’s. It might shatter. Those are the little details that humans provide.

[00:39:36]  Dana Shrager 

 Exactly. And sometimes they’ll say, like, you can freeze this. And, you know, and it will be good, but it won’t be as great as if it’s fresh. Or, you know, like, I try to sort of like, yeah, there’s a little bit of a decision, like, am I going to lose a little bit of something?

[00:39:49]   

 But it’s worth it to me because, you know, I made it two weeks ahead. Or, you know, sometimes I give advice like, I think I personally would rather make this the day before. Then it will be much better than if you freeze it. But if you need to freeze it, like, go ahead. It will still. It will still work.

[00:40:06]  Megan Porta 

 You know, those are the little details you can note either mentally or write down as you’re making the recipe to add authenticity to the post. Like, okay, as I’m cooking this, I noticed it started bubbling. But if I did this, you know, like those little tiny things that we take for granted because we cook all the time, other people might not know.

[00:40:28]   

 So I think just seeing your cooking process through a different lens and noting those things.

[00:40:36]  Dana Shrager 

 Exactly, that’s what makes a recipe more valuable to a reader. All those extra tips, the tips to me are not just a section where I have to check a box and come up with a tip or let me copy other recipes tips. No, the tips have to be super purposeful and useful. And the tips are going to be better.

[00:40:54]   

 If I’m talking from my own lived experience making the dish.

[00:40:59]  Megan Porta 

 Absolutely.

[00:41:00]  Dana Shrager 

 And if I can’t come up with decent tips, if somehow I don’t know, it’s. It’s a salad, I have no tips for you. Then just like, get rid of the section. Like, you don’t have to have to have the section if you actually have nothing to say about it. You know, it’s like, well, I think a lot of us now have templates for our recipes, and you don’t necessarily have to have every section if it’s not applicable to the recipe.

[00:41:22]   

 You don’t have to ask AI for tips like, oh, no, I have no tips. Let me just fill in words and ask AI to give me the words. Just skip the section, it’s fine.

[00:41:32]  Megan Porta 

 But you could ask humans. So something I used to do was my youngest son used to love baking. So if I wanted thoughts from him about anything about the recipe, I would give him a muffin recipe or cupcake recipe and have him make it. And then I would have him comment on it like, this frosting was kind of gooey or whatever.

[00:41:53]   

 And I was like, okay, that’s something I can work with. So then I would add those as authentic ways to improve the recipe inside the post. So that’s another thought. Just maybe having someone who isn’t, you know, the best cook, someone who can learn, who. Yeah. Who is maybe a little bit less experienced, who is willing to learn and give you feedback.

[00:42:18]  Dana Shrager 

 Yeah, that’s great. If you, if you have people, whether it’s friends or children or, you know, relatives who can make your recipes and, you know, be like, wait, this is confusing. You know, like, you know, I’m not, I’m not sure, you know, and readers will give you feedback too, so you can’t. You, like, you know, I, I want the recipe to be as good as I can get it when I put it out there.

[00:42:39]   

 But sometimes if there’s something not anticipated, my readers let me know. But if you can get, if your child can let you know, mom, I don’t understand what you said here. Then that’s great. Especially, you know, if you have a kid who, who, who loves to bake, you know, and sometimes, you know, that’s the, you know, inspiration.

[00:42:56]   

 I mean, my, my website is a family sort of recipe book as it is that I’ve documented recipes from the older generation in my family. And now I have my kids and, you know, what they like to eat and what they’re interested in on the site. And, and like I said, I add things that reader, that readers ask for because I have that dialogue with the reader.

[00:43:17]   

 So, you know, there’s other people, There’s a lot of people out there that, you know, and you can see them too, in the blogger groups. And, you know, they really seem to know what they’re doing and do a good job, but they’re sort of like in their own corner of the Internet and doing a good job, but yet they don’t.

[00:43:33]   

 If you don’t have that interaction, if you don’t. And for me, it’s social media, but if you don’t have that interaction with people. Then, like, nobody actually knows you’re there. And yeah, you know, we all start off with zero. Okay. Like, I remember when I first got my Facebook page, I needed to have 25 followers in order not to be Facebook slash.

[00:43:56]   

 And then like a 10 digit number so I could personalize it with the name of my blog. At the time, I don’t know what the rule is. Now it was 25 followers, and I don’t know, I had like 21 followers and I did not know how to get more followers. Okay. And so my friend said, you know, okay, I’ll handle this.

[00:44:14]   

 And he told everybody in his office to follow me. And I got over 25 and I got to personalize the name, you know, my URL to my Facebook page. But we all start off with nothing. And I also started a Facebook group at the early stages of the pandemic. And in the beginning, almost nobody was there.

[00:44:34]   

 And so my tip is, is to talk as if people are really there, even if you’re worried nobody is there, and talk as if your friends are there. And if you start talking on social media like you’re having a dialogue with the three people who are listening, even if it’s like grandma and your spouse and your neighbor, like, you know, like, it starts like that, but if you really talk like people are there and don’t panic that nobody’s there sometimes, too.

[00:45:02]   

 Right now, the Facebook algorithm is nothing. And I know I’m only going to get a few likes, you know, and I have to remind myself, talk like people are really there and talk like it’s your friend and start that dialogue. And it eventually works. And I also told followers, especially the early followers, I said, will you share your my group with people?

[00:45:23]   

 And I asked people to invite people. And so that’s how it snowballed. But I have two groups, but one of my groups is very personal and very engaged because it started with friends and went to friends of friends, and, you know, it grew very organically. And so it’s a very engaged and lively group.

[00:45:42]   

 I think for that reason.

[00:45:44]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah, that’s great. This is so great. Dana. I love all of this. Is there anything that we haven’t mentioned regarding just being authentic and finding that unique voice that we should mention before we start saying goodbye?

[00:45:58]  Dana Shrager 

 I think the other thing, maybe that we didn’t talk about a lot is to figure out what your reader or your ideal reader’s pain points are or, you know, to serve them and be useful to them. And if you can figure out like what they’re needing or what they’re missing and then serve them that then that really helps get people engaged and helps people become more loyal, you know.

[00:46:21]   

 So for, for me, I’m helping people get their holiday meal on the table. That’s, that’s their pain point. You know, what, whatever it is, 15 people are coming over for dinner. Help. I have to get the food on the table, you know, so another pain point actually my readers have too is they’re like, we lost grandma’s recipe for chicken soup.

[00:46:42]   

 My grandma made the best chicken soup. Help me make the best chicken soup, you know, and you know, whatever it is. So sometimes people are looking for like lost in, in my group in specific, their pain point is we’ve lost grandma’s recipes or grandma cooked, but she never gave us the recipes. So the people will say like, we lost my grandma’s recipes, but maybe if I make somebody else’s grandma’s recipe, maybe, oh yeah, maybe it will be similar.

[00:47:06]   

 So, you know, as you dialogue with the people who follow your page, your group, you, you begin to learn, you know, what, what their needs are. Also the best thing actually about having a group is I ask people why they’re joining the group so they tell me what they need. And the most common thing people say is what I just said.

[00:47:26]   

 We, you know, my, my grandma passed away and we don’t have any of her recipes. So we’re, I’m looking for similar recipes, but if you had a gluten free blog or a baking blog or whatever, people would tell, tell you, you know, why they’re there. And so then you think about what, what kind of recipes will serve the needs about.

[00:47:43]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah, listen up, tune in and deliver. Right. Well, thank you so much for this, Dana. This was such an enlightening conversation. I really appreciate you showing up and adding all the value. So thanks for joining us today. Do you have either a favorite quote or words of inspiration to leave us with?

[00:47:59]  Dana Shrager 

 I do. I’m going to show you a quote. Okay, so this says you did not wake up today to be mediocre. So I got this poster during the pandemic and I put it up with a whole bunch of other posters to help keep me inspired. And you know what that means to me is carpe diem, like live for today and take advantage of today.

[00:48:23]   

 So either do something I’m really going to enjoy or something where I’m going to be really productive, but not to squander away the day and not to wake up and go on social media and Just endlessly scroll and scroll and scroll and accomplish nothing. Like stay like it’s, it’s a reminder to me to stay focused on my goals and, you know, what’s the most important thing I want to accomplish today and to make sure that that happens.

[00:48:47]  Megan Porta 

 I love it. Thank you for sharing that. I love that you had a visual representation too. If you’re watching on YouTube you can see that visual representation. We’ll put together a show notes page for you, Dana, if anyone wants to go look at those. We’ll include everything we’ve talked about in the episode.

[00:49:03]   

 You can head to eatblogtalk.com/danastable. So Dana, tell us where we can find you but also talk a little bit about your Italy situation that you referred to earlier.

[00:49:15]  Dana Shrager 

 Thank you. And thank you so much for having me, Megan. I’m a longtime listener and it’s so exciting to be here dialoguing with you and sharing what I know from 13 years of recipe blogging. And people can find me at danastable.com that’s where you can find all my recipes. And I’m on social media as Dana’s Table LA so doesn’t matter the platform.

[00:49:40]   

 That’s what I am. And when I rebranded as anybody who rebrands or tries to get a URL today, it’s very hard to find a name that you want to use that’s available on every platform, social media platform and the URL. So that’s.

[00:49:57]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah.

[00:49:58]  Dana Shrager 

 So that’s how you can find me. And my friend and I are co teaching a cooking class in Italy that I’m currently taking sign ups for. We have a few more slots left for anybody who wants to join us. It’s the first week of September and our topic is Jewish Italian cooking. We are going in the kitchen.

[00:50:18]   

 We are going to be visiting five different regions in southern Italy and cooking Jewish Italian recipes from those regions. My friend has owned this cooking school in Puglia in Italy for the past 22 years. He’s a sommelier of wine and olive oil. So there’s going to be lessons in wine tasting and olive oil tasting.

[00:50:39]  Megan Porta 

 Wow.

[00:50:39]  Dana Shrager 

 I was in Italy for an extended amount of time collecting recipes from grandmas and restaurants. And so I have recipes to share and my partner Silvestro has recipes to share. And we’re also going to be taking field trips, seeing some interesting things in the area. We’re going to be shopping like locals, going to the local market, butcher, fishmonger, you know, you kind of pretend like you’ve lived there for the week.

[00:51:05]   

 You wake up in the morning and you, you go and you collect the provisions and then you come back and you cook them. And you know, one of my favorite parts about the whole experience is sitting around the table because you’re there with other foodies and other people who share this interest and this passion.

[00:51:21]   

 And it’s the community that you make and the friendships that you for sitting around the table. And that’s pretty much the theme of my whole website and why I called it Dana’s Table and why I try to help other people gather their loved ones either around the dinner table or the holiday table.

[00:51:39]   

 Because for me, it’s not just about each individual recipe, but it’s really using the food as a vehicle to sit around the table and build community.

[00:51:48]  Megan Porta 

 That’s amazing. We’ll have that in your show notes as well if people are interested. But thank you for sharing about that. I think that sounds. Sounds incredible. I hope you have the best time. I’m sure you will.

[00:51:57]  Dana Shrager 

 Thank you. Very excited about it.

[00:51:59]  Megan Porta 

 Yeah. Well, thank you again, Dana, for joining us and thank you for listening, food bloggers. I will see you next time. 

[00:52:14]  Outro

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Eat Blog Talk. Please share this episode with a friend who would benefit from tuning in. I will see you next time.